Caliope's natural place was her garden; outside, under the open blue, ankle deep in mud and forearms covered in grass stains. it was where she was happiest but, more importantly, it was where she found herself at ease.
And nothing had ever made Caliope more uncomfortable than her past experience at at her old finishing school. Except possibly this moment, right here, where she found herself standing awkwardly alongside Enola as the head teacher Mycroft had requested to 'fix' the girl paced around, inspecting the youngest Holmes.
Mycroft had requested (or possibly demanded, it was hard to tell) that Enola be accompanied during the assessment and, upon the revelation that she would have to be undressed and measured, Enola chose Caliope over Mrs. Lane to accompany her. Caliope suspected it was more for the housekeeper's sake than her own. Caliope had so desperately wanted to refuse but both Enola's pleading face and Mycroft's hard stare had rendered her useless to do so. Although she has instantly regretted it when she met the head mistress and had instantly had her posture corrected with several raps of the woman's cane to her spine.
Still, she couldn't abandon Enola.
So, she watched and she waited as the woman had her assistant measure Enola in near enough every place imaginable. Enola looked as uncomfortable as Caliope felt, although infinitely more confused.
Eventually, when her new teacher mentions 'hip amplifier's' Enola seems to have had enough, "Hips are just a function of legs, aren't they? What need have they of amplification?"
"Haven't you a clever little tongue? I shall enjoy that." muses the teacher.
Caliope tenses and shuffles imperceptibly closer to Enola's side, remembering the teachers of her youth and their preferred methods.
"I won't enjoy being imprisoned-"
"Enola-"
"In those preposterous clothes."
"These clothes will not imprison." Her teacher assures, almost smiling, "They will free. They will allow you to fit into society, to enjoy its numerous pleasures. To catch an eye, to attract." As the woman goes on Caliope can't help but think back to the look she saw pass between the teacher and Mycroft Holmes upon her arrival. To wonder if there wasn't some sort of ulterior motive here.
"At my finishing school, you will learn how to be a young lady, and you'll make many new friends." She may be smiling but it is a taught pull of lips across teeth, a painful resemblance of any other person's smile.
"I don't need friends. I have my own company." Replies Enola, genuinely confused. The teacher's smile begins to drop and Caliope raises a warning hand to rest lightly against Enola's arm, to try and dissuade her from upsetting the woman further.
It doesn't work.
"and I don't need to go to your ridiculous school." Enola spits out, ignoring Caliope's warnings, and hardening in mistimed, albeit well-deserved, anger.
In the heavy moment after where the headmistress's smile falls entirely and her lip twitches with her own poorly withheld anger Caliope shoots out a hand and latches onto the teachers wrist. the wrist connected to a twisting, flexing hand. Calliope may not be a fighter, or some great detective herself but she is adept at reading people and a master at using her own history to protect others.
"I ask you, Madam, not to raise a hand to Mr. Holmes' ward. Not when she is left under my watch. Not in this house. Not ever." She manages to keep the tremble from her voice and look the woman in the eye, even as her own eyes begin to water against her will.
Calliope may be a people reader, and a defender, but she's still not a fighter. So she doesn't realise how open she has left herself to attack by stepping in front of Enola and keeping her arms down, holding the teacher's wrist down. She doesn't see the other hand coming.
The teacher strikes her hard, open-palmed, across her cheek.
Caliope lets out a choked shriek as her head snaps to the side and she's forced to take an unsteady step backward.
When she looks back Enola is fleeing the room and her cheek is throbbing already, her bottom lip burning where her teeth sank into it.
"If a finishing school for young ladies could take on one of your age and... standing, rest assured I would give you some much-needed retraining, Miss Watson."
Part of Caliope feels a little guilty for not remembering the woman's name, but a bigger part of her feels angry and humiliated that she just got struck in front of Enola. The girl she's supposed to protect, and she cannot even seem to protect herself.
"Now," The teacher continues, calm and calculated again with her cane back in her hand, "Shall we go and retrieve the girl, lest she make a bigger fool of herself by running around in her undergarments than necessary. Bring that dressing gown."
Caliope obeys, plucking the fabric from its place on the hook by the door, and following the headmistress out into the sitting room Mycroft and Sherlock occupy. Even in her current state Calliope can't help the smile at seeing her vase of collected flowers still sitting in pride of place on the coffee table.
"I don't want a husband!"
"Then that is another thing you need educating-"
"And look!" Enola rounds on Calliope as the two women enter the room, clutching her face and twisting it towards the two men so they can see the mark across her cheek, "Look what this awful woman did to Calliope! What more can you imagine she does to her students?"
Calliope gently pushes Enola's hands away so she can duck out of the spotlight and wrap a dressing gown around Enola's shoulders instead, covering her in front of the men. Men get so easily embarrassed, after all.
Mycroft nods at her in thanks. Caliope ignores him.
Instead, she steps back, remaining between Enola and the girl's new headmistress, as Enola turns instead to Sherlock. She kneels before him, not knowing what to do beyond begging her brother for his help.
"Sherlock... don't let him do this to me."
"you are his ward." Sherlock responds, almost robotically, with his eyes glued to the book in his hands. Dostoevsky. Educated and thought-provoking, every bit the calculating detective all the articles make him out to be. Although, perhaps a little more humanitarian than Caliope might have imagined.
"Then make me yours." Caliope closes her eyes, knowing from the tick of his jaw and the furrow of his brow that Sherlock wouldn't help his little sister, "Guide me. Teach me." Enola continues, "For him, I am a nuisance, for you-"
"Enola!" Sherlock snaps, and Caliope flinches back, just a little. Sherlock finally looks up, eyes going from Enola's pleading face to Calliope's resolute one and the mark on her cheek, the blood on her lip, then back to his sister.
"I'm sorry. It is out of my hands." He finally mutters.
Ever her burning self, Enola continues despite Sherlock's evident guilt, "Just as his cruelty to our mother was out of your hands?"
Neither men seem to have anything to say to this so Enola pushes on, burning brighter with anger and injustice at every word,
"She is not dangerous. She is remarkable and always has been. And if you still can't see that then shame on you both!" Her voice cracks towards the end but she makes her point nonetheless and stands tall whilst doing it. Caliope finds herself near tearing up at the resemblance between mother and daughter in this moment.
"So remarkable that she left you in my care?" Mycroft pokes at his sister, mocking and calculated, the slimy politician in him rising to the surface.
Enola stalls, some of her strength fading away as she battles with her anger and betrayal at her mother's disappearance in an attempt to combat his statement.
However, before she can land her blow, the teacher steps forwards from beside Caliope and seizes her moment, "Well, we had a lovely little chat and, while I think it may be a challenge for us both I believe my school may be just what young Enola needs. I believe we'll be fast friends."
Both men stand for her, a courtesy neither Enola nor Caliope were worthy of it seems.
"No!" Enola finally breaks out, boiling over in her anger, "You are cruel and vindictive and I shall go nowhere with you."
"Then, my dear, what exactly do you plan to do?" The teacher replies her hand flexing again.
"I-" Enola hesitates, but only for a moment before her eyes light up with newfound determination and hope, "I will go with Calliope!"
Suddenly all the attention is back on her, she can feel herself burning up under it.
"Wha-"
"Please! Please, Calliope? I promise I can be good and helpful and I know it all, don't I?" Calliope finds herself nodding, dumb, "I know everything I need and what I don't, I know you will teach me! Please, I can help you and be your assistant and we can turn London green together."
Something in Calliope's chest coils unbearably tightly at Enola's desperate pleas to be saved, to remain with her family one way or another. And that same something snaps painfully as she has to step forwards, take Enola's hands in hers and watch the girl's hope fade from her eyes.
"I'm sorry Enola, but I cannot take you with me. You know that."
"Why not?"
"Well," And she swallows her tears in an attempt to bring some light back to the room, "because now they would know our plan and we'd never get away with it for long."
Enola laughs a little through her own tears.
Caliope smiles down at her and runs her hands up and down Enola's arms, trying to comfort as much as empower with her next message.
"Go, Enola." Calliope can only hope her eyes are conveying the right message, "You have to go. And you will be okay."
Enola drops her head, letting a tear slip out at her defeat. Caliope pulls her into a hug, allowing the cotton of her dress to wipe away Enola's tears before the others in the room, those who will not understand her emotion can see them.
Then she releases the girl, smooths her hair, and with a final smile, sends her away with the headteacher. She can only hope Enola has learned from her own mistakes.
Once Enola has left Caliope lets out a long breath, turning back to face the brothers with her chin held high, "She's right, you know?" They remain silent, although it is clear both are listening as Sherlock has even folded his book shut so only a finger marks his place, "Eudoria Holmes is remarkable and I can only hope you will see it one day."
"And yet, as I said, she is not so remarkable as to find another to care for Enola. Rather i am left to deal with it." Mycroft replies, evidently disregarding the conversation already.
"No, but she is remarkable enough to know Enola is capable of looking after herself, despite being left in your care." Calliope cannot bring herself to look at the men as she says it, but the weighted silence afterward for her to know they were at the very least considering her words, "Now, if you'll please excuse me, I have a vegetable patch to tend to."
"Yes, go." Mycroft instructs through Sherlock's silence and so, with a little nod from Calliope, she exits across the room. Her pace picks up as soon as she's out of sight and she finds herself almost running back to her garden, her safe space. Calliope cannot deny the tears building in her eyes by the time she gets there.
Calliope spends a good period of time sitting on the gravel-lined path, just feeling the soil between her fingers, burying it beneath her nails so she might keep at least a part of Ferndale Hall with her upon her departure the next morning.
Then, with a deep breath and a murmured pep talk to herself, Calliope simply got on with tending to the tomatoes. Keeping her plants safe and well.